Mayor Pete…Buttigieg?

Mayor+Pete...Buttigieg%3F

Aidan Herklotz

In the 2016 election, there were sixteen Republican candidates up for president. I thought this was a lot of candidates, but imagine my surprise when I find out that the number of democratic candidates in 2020 is now in the twenties. It seems that many of these Dems are attempting to topple Trump after his win in 2016, but may I present one of the most promising candidates in the presidential race: Pete Buttigieg, a.k.a. Mayor Pete.

Pete Buttigieg is thirty-seven years old, and running for the Democratic nomination. He’s currently the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana and has been since 2012. He graduated from Harvard College and Pembroke College, Oxford, so at least he has the proper education for the role president. He was also a Naval Intelligence officer and served in Afghanistan in 2014. During his time in Afghanistan, he says that he learned to cooperate with his fellow soldiers and that this was an important lesson for him to learn for his political career.

The biggest issue most people have with Mayor Pete is his age. If Buttigieg were to be elected in 2020, he would be the youngest president by far, with the current holder of that title being Theodore Roosevelt at forty-two years old. Oh, and another problem some may have with Pete is that he’s gay and married – to a man, duh. The biggest problem I see with this is 1.) what do we call his husband when he becomes president?  and 2.) if a president’s wife is first lady, then will a president’s husband be first man? I don’t think Neil Armstrong would be too happy about that.

Besides being possibly the first gay President and an Afghanistan Veteran, Buttigieg has some other good qualities, including his aforementioned focus on cooperation, and his huge amount of experience for his age (Trump could learn a thing or two). Although if we were taking his mayor-ship over South Bend as an example of how he should be president, we might want to rethink his candidacy. Since he first became Mayor of South Bend, he’s been promising to fix the city’s problems, including it’s high poverty rate, but obviously this still hasn’t happened. Many of South Bend’s impoverished say that Buttigieg is inactive in the lives of his people.

From all this research, I’ve drawn the conclusion that Pete Buttigieg will not be president in 2020. Not because of him being too focused on the presidency to help the people of South Bend, but simply because Americans won’t elect such a young and inexperienced man. However, I do think that Buttigieg has a good chance in the next election,; he’s likable, intelligent, and he cares about LGBT and black rights, but he won’t be elected in 2020.